Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda - Vol-8

IndexLectures and Discourses
* Discourses on Jnana-Yoga
* Six Lessons on Raja-Yoga
* Women of India
* My Life and Mission
* Buddha's Message to the World
* Discipleship
* Is Vedanta the Future Religion?
Writings: Prose
* Struggle for Expansion
* The Birth of Religion
* Four Paths of Yoga
* Cyclic Rest and Change
* A Preface to Imitation of Christ
Writings: Poems
* An Interesting Correspondence
* Thou Blessed Dream
* Light
* The Living God
* To an Early Violet
* To My Own Soul
* The Dance of Shiva
* Shiva in Ecstasy
* To Shri Khrishna
* Hymn to Shri Ramakrishna
* Hymn to Shri Ramakrishna
* No One to Blame
Notes of Class Talks and Lectures
* Notes of Class Talks
* Man the Maker of His Destiny
* God: Personal and Impersonal
* Divine Incarnation or Avatara
* Pranayama
* Women of the East
* Congress of Religious Unity
* The Love of God I
* The Love of God II
* India
* Hindus and Christians
* Christianity in India
* The Religion of Love
* Jnana and Karma
* Claims of Vedanta
* The Laws of Life and Death
* The Reality and the Shadow
* Way to Salvation
* The People of India
* I am That I am
* Unity
* The Worship of the Divine Mother
* The Essence of Religion
Sayings and Utterances
Epistles - Fourth Series

Lectures and Discourses

Discourses on Jnana-Yoga

I

(These were originally recorded by a prominent American disciple
of the Swami, Miss S. E. Waldo. Swami Saradananda, while he was in
America (1896), copied them out from her notebook - Ed.)

Om Tat Sat! To know the Om is to know the secret of the universe.
The object of Jnâna-Yoga is the same as that of Bhakti and Râja
Yogas, but the method is different. This is the Yoga for the
strong, for those who are neither mystical nor devotional, but
rational. As the Bhakti-Yogi works his way to complete oneness
with the Supreme through love and devotion, so the Jnâna-Yogi
forces his way to the realisation of God by the power of pure
reason. He must be prepared to throw away all old idols, all old
beliefs and superstitions, all desire for this world or another,
and be determined only to find freedom. Without Jnana (knowledge)
liberation cannot be ours. It consists in knowing what we really
are, that we are beyond fear, beyond birth, beyond death. The
highest good is the realisation of the Self. It is beyond sense,
beyond thought. The real "I" cannot be grasped. It is the eternal
subject and can never become the object of knowledge, because
knowledge is only of the related, not of the Absolute. All
sense-knowledge is limitation; it is an endless chain of cause and
effect. This world is a relative world, a shadow of the real;
still, being the plane of equipoise where happiness and misery are
about evenly balanced, it is the only plane where man can realise
his true Self and know that he is Brahman.

This world is "the evolution of nature and the manifestation of
God". It is our interpretation of Brahman or the Absolute, seen
through the veil of Mâyâ or appearance. The world is not zero, it
has a certain reality; it only appears because Brahman is.

How shall we know the knower? The Vedanta says, "We are It, but
can never know It, because It can never become the object of
knowledge." Modern science also says that It cannot be known. We
can, however, have glimpses of It from time to time. When the
delusion of this world is once broken, it will come back to us,
but no longer will it hold any reality for us. We shall know it as
a mirage. To reach behind the mirage is the aim of all religions.
That man and God are one is the constant teaching of the Vedas,
but only few are able to penetrate behind the veil and reach the
realisation of this truth.

The first thing to be got rid of by him who would be a Jnâni is
fear. Fear is one of our worst enemies. Next, believe in nothing
until you know it. Constantly tell yourself, "I am not the body, I
am not the mind, I am not thought, I am not even consciousness; I
am the Atman." When you can throw away all, only the true Self
will remain. The Jnani's meditation is of two sorts: (1) to deny
and think away everything we are not; (2) to insist upon what we
really are - the Atman, the One Self - Existence, Knowledge, and
Bliss. The true rationalist must go on and fearlessly follow his
reason to its farthest limits. It will not answer to stop anywhere
on the road. When we begin to deny, all must go until we reach
what cannot be thrown away or denied, which is the real "I". That
"I" is the witness of the universe, it is unchangeable, eternal,
infinite. Now, layer after layer of ignorance covers it from our
eyes, but it remains ever the same.

Two birds sat on one tree. The bird at the top was calm, majestic,
beautiful, perfect. The lower bird was always hopping from twig to
twig, now eating sweet fruits and being happy, now eating bitter
fruits and being miserable. One day, when he had eaten a fruit
more bitter than usual, he glanced up at the calm majestic upper
bird and thought, "How I would like to be like him!" and he hopped
up a little way towards him. Soon he forgot all about his desire
to be like the upper bird, and went on as before, eating sweet and
bitter fruits and being happy and miserable. Again he looked up,
again he went up a little nearer to the calm and majestic upper
bird. Many times was this repeated until at last he drew very near
the upper bird; the brilliancy of his plumage dazzled him, seemed
to absorb him, and finally, to his wonder and surprise, he found
there was only one bird - he was the upper bird all the time and
had but just found it out. Man is like that lower bird, but if he
perseveres in his efforts to rise to the highest ideal he can
conceive of, he too will find that he was the Self all the time
and the other was but a dream. To separate ourselves utterly from
matter and all belief in its reality is true Jnana. The Jnani must
keep ever in his mind the "Om Tat Sat", that is, Om the only real
existence. Abstract unity is the foundation of Jnana-Yoga. This is
called Advaitism ("without dualism or dvaitism"). This is the
corner-stone of the Vedanta philosophy, the Alpha and the Omega.
"Brahman alone is true, all else is false and I am Brahman." Only
by telling ourselves this until we make it a part of our very
being, can we rise beyond all duality, beyond both good and evil,
pleasure and pain, joy and sorrow, and know ourselves as the One,
eternal, unchanging, infinite - the "One without a second".

The Jnana-Yogi must be as intense as the narrowest sectarian, yet
as broad as the heavens. He must absolutely control his mind, be
able to be a Buddhist or a Christian, to have the power to
consciously divide himself into all these different ideas and yet
hold fast to the eternal harmony. Constant drill alone can enable
us to get this control. All variations are in the One, but we must
learn not to identify ourselves with what we do, and to hear
nothing, see nothing, talk of nothing but the thing in hand. We
must put in our whole soul and be intense. Day and night tell
yourself, "I am He, I am He."

II

(These were originally recorded by a prominent American disciple
of the Swami, Miss S. E. Waldo. Swami Saradananda, while he was in
America (1896), copied them out from her notebook - Ed.)

The greatest teacher of the Vedanta philosophy was Shankârachârya.
By solid reasoning he extracted from the Vedas the truths of
Vedanta, and on them built up the wonderful system of Jnâna that
is taught in his commentaries. He unified all the conflicting
descriptions of Brahman and showed that there is only one Infinite
Reality. He showed too that as man can only travel slowly on the
upward road, all the varied presentations are needed to suit his
varying capacity. We find something akin to this in the teachings
of Jesus, which he evidently adapted to the different abilities of
his hearers. First he taught them of a Father in heaven and to
pray to Him. Next he rose a step higher and told them, "I am the
vine, you are the branches", and lastly he gave them the highest
truth: "I and my Father are one", and "The Kingdom of Heaven is
within you." Shankara taught that three things were the great
gifts of God: (1) human body, (2) thirst after God, and (3) a
teacher who can show us the light. When these three great gifts
are ours, we may know that our redemption is at hand. Only
knowledge can free and save us, but with knowledge must go virtue.

The essence of Vedanta is that there is but one Being and that
every soul is that Being in full, not a part of that Being. All
the sun is reflected in each dew-drop. Appearing in time, space
and causality, this Being is man, as we know him, but behind all
appearance is the one Reality. Unselfishness is the denial of the
lower or apparent self. We have to free ourselves from this
miserable dream that we are these bodies. We must know the truth,
"I am He". We are not drops to fall into the ocean and be lost;
each one is the whole, infinite ocean, and will know it when
released from the fetters of illusion. Infinity cannot be divided,
the "One without a second" can have no second, all is that One.
This knowledge will come to all, but we should struggle to attain
it now, because until we have it, we cannot really give mankind
the best help. The Jivanmukta ('the living free' or one who knows)
alone is able to give real love, real charity, real truth, and it
is truth alone that makes us free. Desire makes slaves of us, it
is an insatiable tyrant and gives its victims no rest; but the
Jivanmukta has conquered all desire by rising to the knowledge
that he is the One and there is nothing left to wish for.

The mind brings before us all our delusions - body, sex, creed,
caste, bondage; so we have to tell the truth to the mind
incessantly, until it is made to realise it. Our real nature is
all bliss, and all the pleasure we know is but a reflection, an
atom, of that bliss we get from touching our real nature. That is
beyond both pleasure and pain. It is the "witness" of the
universe, the unchanging reader before whom turn the leaves of the
book of life.

Through practice comes Yoga, through Yoga comes knowledge, through
knowledge love, and through love bliss.

"Me and mine" is a superstition; we have lived in it so long that
it is well-nigh impossible to shake it off. Still we must get rid
of it if we would rise to the highest. We must be bright and
cheerful, long faces do not make religion. Religion should be the
most joyful thing in the world, because it is the best. Asceticism
cannot make us holy. Why should a man who loves God and who is
pure be sorrowful? He should be like a happy child, be truly a
child of God. The essential thing in religion is making the heart
pure; the Kingdom of Heaven is within us, but only the pure in
heart can see the King. While we think of the world, it is only
the world for us; but let us come to it with the feeling that the
world is God, and we shall have God. This should be our thought
towards everyone and everything - parents, children, husbands,
wives, friends, and enemies. Think how it would change the whole
universe for us if we could consciously fill it with God! See
nothing but God! All sorrow, all struggle, all pain would be
forever lost to us!

Jnana is "creedlessness", but that does not mean that it despises
creeds. It only means that a stage above and beyond creeds has
been gained. The Jnâni seeks not to destroy, but to help all. As
all rivers roll their waters into the sea and become one, so all
creeds should lead to Jnana and become one.

The reality of everything depends upon Brahman, and only as we
really grasp this truth, have we any reality. When we cease to see
any differences, then we know that "I and the Father are One".

Jnana is taught very clearly by Krishna in the Bhagavad-Gitâ. This
great poem is held to be the Crown jewel of all Indian literature.
It is a kind of commentary on the Vedas. It shows us that our
battle for spirituality must be fought out in this life; so we
must not flee from it, but rather compel it to give us all that it
holds. As the Gita typifies this struggle for higher things, it is
highly poetical to lay the scene in a battlefield. Krishna in the
guise of a charioteer to Arjuna, leader of one of the opposing
armies, urges him not to be sorrowful, not to fear death, since he
knows he is immortal, that nothing which changes can be in the
real nature of man. Through chapter after chapter, Krishna teaches
the higher truths of philosophy and religion to Arjuna. It is
these teachings which make this poem so wonderful; practically the
whole of the Vedanta philosophy is included in them. The Vedas
teach that the soul is infinite and in no way affected by the
death of the body. The soul is a circle whose circumference is
nowhere, but whose centre is in some body. Death (so-called) is
but a change of centre. God is a circle whose circumference is
nowhere and whose centre is everywhere, and when we can get out of
the narrow centre of body, we shall realise God - our true Self.

The present is only a line of demarcation between the past and the
future; so we cannot rationally say that we care only for the
present, as it has no existence apart from the past and the
future. It is all one complete whole, the idea of time being
merely a condition imposed upon us by the form of our
understanding.

III

(These were originally recorded by a prominent American disciple
of the Swami, Miss S. E. Waldo. Swami Saradananda, while he was in
America (1896), copied them out from her notebook - Ed.)

Jnâna teaches that the world should be given up, but not on that
account to be abandoned. To be in the world, but not of it, is the
true test of the Sannyâsin. This idea of renunciation has been in
some form common to nearly all religions. Jnana demands that we
look upon all alike, that we see only "sameness". Praise and
blame, good and bad, even heat and cold, must be equally
acceptable to us. In India there are many holy men of whom this is
literally true. They wander on the snow-clad heights of the
Himalayas or over the burning desert sands, entirely unclothed and
apparently entirely unconscious of any difference in temperature.

We have first of all to give up this superstition of body; we are
not the body. Next must go the further superstition that we are
mind. We are not mind; it is but the "silken body", not any part
of the soul. The mere word "body", applied to nearly all things,
includes something common among all bodies. This is existence.

Our bodies are symbols of thought behind, and the thoughts
themselves are in their turn symbols of something behind them,
that is, the one Real Existence, the Soul of our soul, the Self of
the universe, the Life of our life, our true Self. As long as we
believe ourselves to be even the least different from God, fear
remains with us; but when we know ourselves to be the One, fear
goes: of what can we be afraid? By sheer force of will the Jnâni
rises beyond body, beyond mind, making this universe zero. Thus he
destroys Avidyâ and knows his true Self, the Âtman. Happiness and
misery are only in the senses, they cannot touch our real Self.
The soul is beyond time, space, and causality - therefore
unlimited, omnipresent.

The Jnani has to come out of all forms, to get beyond all rules
and books, and be his own book. Bound by forms, we crystallise and
die. Still the Jnani must never condemn those who cannot yet rise
above forms. He must never even think of another, "I am holier
than thou".

These are the marks of the true Jnana-Yogi: (1) He desires
nothing, save to know. (2) All his senses are under perfect
restraint; he suffers everything without murmuring, equally
content if his bed be the bare ground under the open sky, or if he
is lodged in a king's palace. He shuns no suffering, he stands and
bears it-he has given up all but the Self. (3) He knows that all
but the One is unreal. (4) He has an intense desire for freedom.
With a strong will, he fixes his mind on higher things and so
attains to peace. If we know not peace, what are we more than the
brutes? He does everything for others - for the Lord - giving up
all fruits of work and looking for no result, either here or
hereafter. What can the universe give us more than our own soul?
Possessing that, we possess all. The Vedas teach that the Atman,
or Self, is the One Undivided Existence. It is beyond mind,
memory, thought, or even consciousness as we know it. From it are
all things. It is that through which (or because of which) we see,
hear, feel, and think. The goal of the universe is to realise
oneness with the "Om" or One Existence. The Jnani has to be free
from all forms; he is neither a Hindu, a Buddhist, nor a
Christian, but he is all three. All action is renounced, given up
to the Lord; then no action has power to bind. The Jnani is a
tremendous rationalist; he denies everything. He tells himself day
and night, "There are no beliefs, no sacred words, no heaven, no
hell, no creed, no church - there is only Atman." When everything
has been thrown away until what cannot be thrown away is reached,
that is the Self. The Jnani takes nothing for granted; he analyses
by pure reason and force of will, until he reaches Nirvâna which
is the extinction of all relativity. No description or even
conception of this state is possible. Jnana is never to be judged
by any earthly result. Be not like the vulture which soars almost
beyond sight, but which is ever ready to swoop downwards at the
sight of a bit of carrion. Ask not for healing, or longevity, or
prosperity, ask only to be free.

We are "Existence, Knowledge, Bliss" (Sachchidânanda). Existence
is the last generalisation in the universe; so we exist, we know
it; and bliss is the natural result of existence without alloy.
Now and then we know a moment of supreme bliss, when we ask
nothing, give nothing, and know nothing but bliss. Then it passes
and we again see the panorama of the universe going on before us
and we know it is but a "mosaic work set upon God, who is the
background of all things". When we return to earth and see the
Absolute as relative, we see Sachchidananda as Trinity - Father,
Son, Holy Ghost. Sat = the creating principle; Chit = the guiding
principle; Ânanda = the realising principle, which joins us again
to the One. No one can know "existence" (Sat) except through
"knowledge" (Chit), and hence the force of the saying of Jesus, No
man can see the Father save through the Son. The Vedanta teaches
that Nirvana can be attained here and now, that we do not have to
wait for death to reach it. Nirvana is the realisation of the
Self, and after having once, if only for an instant, known this,
never again can one be deluded by the mirage of personality.
Having eyes, we must see the apparent; but all the time we know it
for what it is, we have found out its true nature. It is the
"screen" that hides the Self which is unchanging. The screen opens
and we find the Self behind it - all change is in the screen. In
the saint the screen is thin and the Reality can almost shine
through; but in the sinner it is thick, and we are apt to lose
sight of the truth that the Atman is there, as well as behind the
saint.

All reasoning ends only in finding Unity; so we first use
analysis, then synthesis. In the world of science, the forces are
gradually narrowed down in the search for one underlying force.
When physical science can perfectly grasp the final unity, it will
have reached an end, for reaching unity we find rest. Knowledge is
final.

Religion, the most precious of all sciences, long ago discovered
that final unity, to reach which is the object of Jnana-Yoga.
There is but one Self in the universe, of which all lower selves
are but manifestations. The Self, however, is infinitely more than
all of its manifestations. All is the Self or Brahman. The saint,
the sinner, the lamb, the tiger, even the murderer, as far as they
have any reality, can be nothing else, because there is nothing
else. "That which exists is One, sages call It variously." Nothing
can be higher than this knowledge, and in those purified by Yoga
it comes in flashes to the soul. The more one has been purified
and prepared by Yoga and meditation, the clearer are these flashes
of realisation. This was dis covered 4,000 years ago, but has not
yet become the property of the race; it is still the property of
some individuals only.

IV

(These were originally recorded by a prominent American disciple
of the Swami, Miss S. E. Waldo. Swami Saradananda, while he was in
America (1896), copied them out from her notebook - Ed.)

All men, so-called, are not yet really human beings. Everyone has
to judge of this world through his own mind. The higher
understanding is extremely difficult. The concrete is more to most
people than the abstract. As an illustration of this, a story is
told of two men in Bombay - one a Hindu and the other a Jain - who
were playing chess in the house of a rich merchant of Bombay. The
house was near the sea, the game long; the ebb and flow of the
tide under the balcony where they sat attracted the attention of
the players. One explained it by a legend that the gods in their
play threw the water into a great pit and then threw it out again.
The other said: No, the gods draw it up to the top of a high
mountain to use it, and then when they have done with it, they
throw it down again. A young student present began to laugh at
them and said, "Do you not know that the attraction of the moon
causes the tides?" At this, both men turned on him in a fury and
inquired if he thought they were fools. Did he suppose that they
believed the moon had any ropes to pull up the tides, or that it
could reach so far? They utterly refused to accept any such
foolish explanation. At this juncture the host entered the room
and was appealed to by both parties. He was an educated man and of
course knew the truth, but seeing plainly the impossibility of
making the chess-players understand it, he made a sign to the
student and then proceeded to give an explanation of the tides
that proved eminently satisfactory to his ignorant hearers. "You
must know", he told them, "that afar off in the middle of the
ocean, there is a huge mountain of sponge - you have both seen
sponge, and know what I mean. This mountain of sponge absorbs a
great deal of the water and then the sea falls; by and by the gods
come down and dance on the mountain and their weight squeezes all
the water out and the sea rises again. This, gentlemen, is the
cause of the tides, and you can easily see for yourselves how
reasonable and simple is this explanation." The two men who
ridiculed the power of the moon to cause the tides, found nothing
incredible in a mountain of sponge, danced upon by the gods! The
gods were real to them, and they had actually seen sponge; what
was more likely than their joint effect upon the sea!

"Comfort" is no test of truth; on the contrary, truth is often far
from being "comfortable". If one intends to really find truth, one
must not cling to comfort. It is hard to let all go, but the Jnâni
must do it. He must become pure, kill out all desires and cease to
identify himself with the body. Then and then only, the higher
truth can shine in his soul. Sacrifice is necessary, and this
immolation of the lower self is the underlying truth that has made
sacrifice a part of all religions. All the propitiatory offerings
to the gods were but dimly understood types of the only sacrifice
that is of any real value, the surrender of the apparent self,
through which alone we can realise the higher Self, the Âtman. The
Jnani must not try to preserve the body, nor even wish to do so.
He must be strong and follow truth, though the universe fall.
Those who follow "fads" can never do this. It is a life-work, nay,
the work of a hundred lives! Only the few dare to realise the God
within, to renounce heaven and Personal God and all hope of
reward. A firm will is needed to do this; to be even vacillating
is a sign of tremendous weakness. Man always is perfect, or he
never could become so; but he had to realise it. If man were bound
by external causes, he could only be mortal. Immortality can only
be true of the unconditioned. Nothing can act on the Atman - the
idea is pure delusion; but man must identify himself with that,
not with body or mind. Let him know that he is the witness of the
universe, then he can enjoy the beauty of the wonderful panorama
passing before him. Let him even tell himself, "I am the universe,
I am Brahman." When man really identifies himself with the One,
the Atman, everything is possible to him and all matter becomes
his servant. As Shri Ramakrishna has said: After the butter is
churned, it can be put in water or milk and will never mix with
either; so when man has once realised the Self, he can no more be
contaminated by the world.

"From a balloon, no minor distinctions are visible, so when man
rises high enough, he will not see good and evil people." "Once
the pot is burned, no more can it be shaped; so with the mind that
has once touched the Lord and has had a baptism of fire, no more
can it be changed." Philosophy in Sanskrit means "clear vision",
and religion is practical philosophy. Mere theoretic, speculative
philosophy is not much regarded in India. There is no church, no
creed, no dogma. The two great divisions are the "Dvaitists" and
the "Advaitists". The former say, "The way to salvation is through
the mercy of God; the law of causation, once set in motion, can
never be broken; only God, who is not bound by this law, by His
mercy helps us to break it". The latter say, "Behind all this
nature is something that is free; and finding that which is beyond
all law gets us freedom; and freedom is salvation." Dualism is
only one phase, Advaitism goes to the ultimate. To become pure is
the shortest path to freedom. Only that is ours which we earn. No
authority can save us, no beliefs. If there is a God, all can find
Him. No one needs to be told it is warm; each one can discover it
for himself. So it should be with God. He should be a fact in the
consciousness of all men. The Hindus do not recognise "sin", as it
is understood by the Western mind. Evil deeds are not "sins", we
are not offending some Ruler in committing these; we are simply
injuring ourselves, and we must suffer the penalty. It is not a
sin to put one's finger in the fire, but he who does so will
surely suffer just as much as if it were. All deeds produce
certain results, and "every deed returns to the doer".
"Trinitarianism" is an advance on "Unitarianism" (which is
dualism, God and man forever separate). The first step upwards is
when we recognise ourselves as the children of God; the last step
is when we realise ourselves as the One, the Atman.

V

(These were originally recorded by a prominent American disciple
of the Swami, Miss S. E. Waldo. Swami Saradananda, while he was in
America (1896), copied them out from her notebook - Ed.)

The question why there cannot be eternal bodies is in itself
illogical, as "body" is a term applied to a certain combination of
elements, changeable and in its very nature impermanent. When we
are not passing through changes, we will not have bodies
(so-called). "Matter" beyond the limit of time, space, and
causality will not be matter at all. Time and space exist only in
us, we are the one Permanent Being. All forms are transitory, that
is why all religions say, "God has no form". Menander was a
Greco-Bactrian king. He was converted to Buddhism about 150 B.C.
by one of the Buddhist missionary monks and was called by them
"Milinda". He asked a young monk, his teacher, "Can a perfect man
(such as Buddha) be in error or make mistakes?" The young monk's
answer was : The perfect man can remain in ignorance of minor
matters not in his experience, but he can never be in error as to
what his insight has actually realised. He is perfect here and
now. He knows the whole mystery, the Essence of the universe, but
he may not know the mere external variation through which that
Essence is manifested in time and space. He knows the clay itself,
but has not had experience of every shape it may be wrought into.
The perfect man knows the Soul itself, but not every form and
combination of its manifestation. He would have to attain more
relative knowledge just as we do, though on account of his immense
power, he would learn it far more quickly.

The tremendous "search-light" of a perfectly controlled mind, when
thrown on any subject, would rapidly reduce it to possession. It
is very important to understand this, because it saves so much
foolish explanation as to how a Buddha or a Jesus could be
mistaken in ordinary relative Knowledge, as we well know they
were. The disciples should not be blamed as having put down the
sayings erroneously. It is humbug to say that one thing is true
and another untrue in their statements. Accept the whole account,
or reject it. How can we pick out the true from the false?

If a thing happens once, it can happen again. If any human being
has ever realised perfection, we too can do so. If we cannot
become perfect here and now, we never can in any state or heaven
or condition we may imagine. If Jesus Christ was not perfect, then
the religion bearing his name falls to the ground. If he was
perfect, then we too can become perfect. The perfect man does not
reason or "know", as we count "knowing", for all our knowledge is
mere comparison, and there is no comparison, no classification,
possible in the Absolute. Instinct is less liable to error than
reason, but reason is higher and leads to intuition, which is
higher still. Knowledge is the parent of intuition, which like
instinct, is also unerring, but on a higher plane. There are three
grades of manifestation in living beings: (1) sub-conscious -
mechanical, unerring; (2) conscious - knowing, erring; (3) super
conscious - intuitional, unerring; and these are illustrated in an
animal, man, and God. For the man who has become perfect, nothing
remains but to apply his understanding. He lives only to help the
world, desiring nothing for himself. What distinguishes is
negative - the positive is ever wider and wider. What we have in
common is the widest of all, and that is "Being".

"Law is a mental shorthand to explain a series of phenomena"; but
law as an entity, so to speak, does not exist. We use the word to
express the regular succession of certain occurrences in the
phenomenal world. We must not let law become a superstition, a
something inevitable, to which we must submit. Error must
accompany reason, but the very struggle to conquer error makes us
gods. Disease is the struggle of nature to cast out something
wrong; so sin is the struggle of the divine in us to throw off the
animal. We must "sin" (that is, make mistakes) in order to rise to
Godhood.

Do not pity anyone. Look upon all as your equal; cleanse yourself
of the primal sin of inequality. We are all equal and must not
think, "I am good and you are bad, and I am trying to reclaim
you". Equality is the sign of the free. Jesus came to publicans
and sinners and lived with them. He never set himself on a
pedestal. Only sinners see sin. See not man, see only the Lord. We
manufacture our own heaven and can make a heaven even in hell.
Sinners are only to be found in hell, and as long as we see them
around us, we are there ourselves. Spirit is not in time, nor in
space. Realise "I am Existence Absolute, Knowledge Absolute, Bliss
Absolute - I am He, I am He". Be glad at birth, be glad at death,
rejoice always in the love of God. Get rid of the bondage of body;
we have become slaves to it and learnt to hug our chains and love
our slavery; so much so that we long to perpetuate it, and go on
with "body" "body" forever. Do not cling to the idea of "body", do
not look for a future existence in any way like this one; do not
love or want the body, even of those dear to us. This life is our
teacher, and dying only makes room to begin over again. Body is
our schoolmaster, but to commit suicide is folly, it is only
killing the "schoolmaster". Another will take his place. So until
we have learnt to transcend the body, we must have it, and losing
one, will get another. Still we must not identify ourselves with
the body, but look upon it only as an instrument to be used in
reaching perfection. Hanumân, the devotee of Râma, summed up his
philosophy in these words: When I identify myself with the body, O
Lord, I am Thy creature, eternally separate from Thee. When I
identify myself with the soul, I am a spark of that Divine Fire
which Thou art. But when I identify myself with the Atman, I and
Thou art one.

Therefore the Jnani strives to realise the Self and nothing else.

VI

(These were originally recorded by a prominent American disciple
of the Swami, Miss S. E. Waldo. Swami Saradananda, while he was in
America (1896), copied them out from her notebook - Ed.)

Thought is all important, for "what we think we become". There was
once a Sannyâsin, a holy man, who sat under a tree and taught the
people. He drank milk, and ate only fruit, and made endless
"Prânâyâmas", and felt himself to be very holy. In the same
village lived an evil woman. Every day the Sannyasin went and
warned her that her wickedness would lead her to hell. The poor
woman, unable to change her method of life which was her only
means of livelihood, was still much moved by the terrible future
depicted by the Sannyasin. She wept and prayed to the Lord,
begging Him to forgive her because she could not help herself. By
and by both the holy man and the evil woman died. The angels came
and bore her to heaven, while the demons claimed the soul of the
Sannyasin. "Why is this!" he exclaimed, "have I not lived a most
holy life, and preached holiness to everybody? Why should I be
taken to hell while this wicked woman is taken to heaven?"
"Because," answered the demons, "while she was forced to commit
unholy acts, her mind was always fixed on the Lord and she sought
deliverance, which has now come to her. But you, on the contrary,
while you performed only holy acts, had your mind always fixed on
the wickedness of others. You saw only sin, and thought only of
sin, so now you have to go to that place where only sin is." The
moral of the story is obvious: The outer life avails little. The
heart must be pure and the pure heart sees only good, never evil.
We should never try to be guardians of mankind, or to stand on a
pedestal as saints reforming sinners. Let us rather purify
ourselves, and the result must be that in so doing we shall help
others.

Physics is bounded on both sides by metaphysics. So it is with
reason - it starts from non-reason and ends with non-reason. If we
push inquiry far enough in the world of perception, we must reach
a plane beyond perception. Reason is really stored up and
classified perception, preserved by memory. We can never imagine
or reason beyond our sense-perceptions. Nothing beyond reason can
be an object of sense-knowledge. We feel the limited character of
reason, yet it does bring us to a plane where we get a glimpse of
something beyond. The question then arises: Has man an instrument
that transcends reason? It is very probable that in man there is a
power to reach beyond reason; in fact the saints in all ages
assert the existence of this power in themselves. But it is
impossible in the very nature of things to translate spiritual
ideas and perceptions into the language of reason; and these
saints, each and all, have declared their inability to make known
their spiritual experiences. Language can, of course, supply no
words for them, so that it can only be asserted that these are
actual experiences and can be had by all. Only in that way can
they become known, but they can never be described. Religion is
the science which learns the transcendental in nature through the
transcendental in man. We know as yet but little of man,
consequently but little of the universe. When we know more of man,
we shall probably know more of the universe. Man is the epitome of
all things and all knowledge is in him. Only for the infinitesimal
portion of the universe, which comes into sense-perception, are we
able to find a reason; never can we give the reason for any
fundamental principle. Giving a reason for a thing is simply to
classify it and put it in a pigeon-hole of the mind. When we meet
a new fact, we at once strive to put it in some existing category
and the attempt to do this is to reason. When we succeed in
placing the fact, it gives a certain amount of satisfaction, but
we can never go beyond the physical plane in this classification.
That man can transcend the limits of the senses is the emphatic
testimony of all past ages. The Upanishads told 5,000 years ago
that the realisation of God could never be had through the senses.
So far, modern agnosticism agrees, but the Vedas go further than
the negative side and assert in the plainest terms that man can
and does transcend this sense-bound, frozen universe. He can, as
it were, find a hole in the ice, through which he can pass and
reach the whole ocean of life. Only by so transcending the world
of sense, can he reach his true Self and realise what he really
is.

Jnâna is never sense-knowledge. We cannot know Brahman, but we are
Brahman, the whole of It, not a piece. The un-extended can never
be divided. The apparent variety is but the reflection seen in
time and space, as we see the sun reflected in a million dewdrops,
though we know that the sun itself is one and not many. In Jnana
we have to lose sight of the variety and see only the Unity. Here
there is no subject, no object, no knowing, no thou or he or I,
only the one, absolute Unity. We are this all the time; once free,
ever free. Man is not bound by the law of causation. Pain and
misery are not in man, they are but as the passing cloud throwing
its shadow over the sun, but the cloud passes, the sun is
unchanged; and so it is with man. He is not born, he does not die,
he is not in time and space. These ideas are mere reflections of
the mind, but we mistake them for the reality and so lose sight of
the glorious truth they obscure. Time is but the method of our
thinking, but we are the eternally present tense. Good and evil
have existence only in relation to us. One cannot be had without
the other, because neither has meaning or existence apart from the
other. As long as we recognise duality, or separate God and man,
so long we must see good and evil. Only by going to the centre, by
unifying ourselves with God can we escape the delusions of the
senses. When we let go the eternal fever of desire, the endless
thirst that gives us no rest, when we have forever quenched
desire, we shall escape both good and evil, because we shall have
transcended both. The satisfaction of desire only increases it, as
oil poured on fire but makes it burn more fiercely. The further
from the centre, the faster goes the wheel, the less the rest.
Draw near the centre, check desire, stamp it out, let the false
self go, then our vision will clear and we shall see God. Only
through renunciation of this life and of all life to come (heaven
etc.), can we reach the point where we stand firmly on the true
Self. While we hope for anything, desire still rules us. Be for
one moment really "hopeless", and the mist will clear. For what to
hope when one is the all of existence? The secret of Jnana is to
give up all and be sufficient unto ourselves. Say "not", and you
become "not"; say "is", and you become "is". Worship the Self
within, naught else exists. All that binds us is Mâyâ-delusion.

VII

(These were originally recorded by a prominent American disciple
of the Swami, Miss S. E. Waldo. Swami Saradananda, while he was in
America (1896), copied them out from her notebook - Ed.)

The Self is the condition of all in the universe, but It can never
be conditioned. As soon as we know that we are It, we are free. As
mortals we are not and never can be free. Free mortality is a
contradiction in terms, for mortality implies change, and only the
changeless can be free. The Atman alone is free, and that is our
real essence. We feel this inner freedom; in spite of all
theories, all beliefs, we know it, and every action proves that we
know it. The will is not free, its apparent freedom is but a
reflection from the Real. If the world were only an endless chain
of cause and effect, where could one stand to help it? There must
needs be a piece of dry land for the rescuer to stand on, else how
can he drag anyone out of the rushing stream and save him from
drowning? Even the fanatic who cries "I am a worm", thinks that he
is on the way to become a saint. He sees the saint even in the
worm.

There are two ends or aims of human life, real knowing (Vijnâna)
and bliss. Without freedom, these two are impossible. They are the
touchstone of all life. We should feel the Eternal Unity so much,
that we should weep for all sinners, knowing that it is we who are
sinning. The eternal law is self-sacrifice, not self-assertion.
What self to assert when all is one? There are no "rights", all is
love. The great truths that Jesus taught have never been lived.
Let us try his method and see if the world will not be saved. The
contrary method has nearly destroyed it. Selflessness only, not
selfishness, can solve the question. The idea of "right" is a
limitation; there is really no "mine" and "thine", for I am thou
and thou art I. We have "responsibility", not "rights". We should
say, "I am the universe", not "I am John" or "I am Mary". These
limitations are all delusions and are what holds us in bondage,
for as soon as I think, "I am John", I want exclusive possession
of certain things and begin to say "me and mine", and continually
make new distinctions in so doing. So our bondage goes on
increasing with every fresh distinction, and we get further and
further away from the central Unity, the undivided Infinite. There
is only one Individual, and each of us is That. Oneness alone is
love and fearlessness; separation leads us to hatred and fear.
Oneness fulfils the law. Here, on earth, we strive to enclose
little spaces and exclude outsiders, but we cannot do that in the
sky, though that is what sectarian religion tries to do when it
says, "Only this way leads to salvation, all others are wrong".
Our aim should be to wipe out these little enclosures to widen the
boundaries until they are lost sight of, and to realise that all
religions lead to God. This little puny self must be sacrificed.
This is the truth symbolised by baptism into a new life, the death
of the old man, the birth of the new - the perishing of the false
self, the realisation of the Atman, the one Self of the universe.

The two great divisions of the Vedas are Karma Kânda - the portion
pertaining to doing or work, and Jnâna Kânda - the portion
treating of knowing, true knowledge. In the Vedas we can find the
whole process of the growth of religious ideas. This is because
when a higher truth was reached, the lower perception that led to
it, was still preserved. This was done, because the sages realised
that the world of creation being eternal, there would always be
those who needed the first steps to knowledge, that the highest
philosophy, while open to all, could never be grasped by all. In
nearly every other religion, only the last or highest realisation
of truth has been preserved, with the natural consequence that the
older ideas were lost, while the newer ones were only understood
by the few and gradually came to have no meaning for the many. We
see this result illustrated in the growing revolt against old
traditions and authorities. Instead of accepting them, the man of
today boldly challenges them to give reasons for their claims, to
make clear the grounds upon which they demand acceptance. Much in
Christianity is the mere application of new names and meanings to
old pagan beliefs and customs. If the old sources had been
preserved and the reasons for the transitions fully explained,
many things would have been clearer. The Vedas preserved the old
ideas and this fact necessitated huge commentaries to explain them
and why they were kept. It also led to many superstitions, through
clinging to old forms after all sense of their meaning had been
lost. In many ceremonials, words are repeated which have survived
from a now forgotten language and to which no real meaning can now
be attached. The idea of evolution was to be found in the Vedas
long before the Christian era; but until Darwin said it was true,
it was regarded as a mere Hindu superstition.

All external forms of prayer and worship are included in the Karma
Kanda. These are good when performed in a spirit of unselfishness
and not allowed to degenerate into mere formality. They purify the
heart. The Karma-Yogi wants everyone to be saved before himself.
His only salvation is to help others to salvation. "To serve
Krishna's servants is the highest worship." One great saint
prayed, "Let me go to hell with the sins of the whole world, but
let the world be saved." This true worship leads to intense
self-sacrifice. It is told of one sage that he was willing to give
all his virtues to his dog, that it might go to heaven, because it
had long been faithful to him, while he himself was content to go
to hell.

The Jnana Kanda teaches that knowledge alone can save, in other
words, that he must become "wise unto salvation". Knowledge is
first objective, the Knower knowing Himself. The Self, the only
subject, is in manifestation seeking only to know Itself. The
better the mirror, the better reflection it can give; so man is
the best mirror, and the purer the man, the more clearly he can
reflect God. Man makes the mistake of separating himself from God
and identifying himself with the body. This mistake arises through
Maya, which is not exactly delusion but might be said to be seeing
the real as something else and not as it is. This identifying of
ourselves with the body leads to inequality, which inevitably
leads to struggle and jealousy, and so long as we see inequality,
we can never know happiness. "Ignorance and inequality are the two
sources of all misery", says Jnana.

When man has been sufficiently buffeted by the world, he awakes to
a desire for freedom; and searching for means of escape from the
dreary round of earthly existence, he seeks knowledge, learns what
he really is, and is free. After that he looks at the world as a
huge machine, but takes good care to keep his fingers out of the
wheels. Duty ceases for him who is free; what power can constrain
the free being? He does good, because it is his nature, not
because any fancied duty commands it. This does not apply to those
who are still in the bondage of the senses. Only for him, who has
transcended the lower self, is this freedom. He stands on his own
soul, obeys no law; he is free and perfect. He has undone the old
superstitions and got out of the wheel. Nature is but the mirror
of our own selves. There is a limit to the working power of human
beings, but no limit to desire; so we strive to get hold of the
working powers of others and enjoy the fruits of their labours,
escaping work ourselves. Inventing machinery to work for us can
never increase well-being, for in gratifying desire, we only find
it, and then we want more and more without end. Dying, still
filled with ungratified desires, we have to be born again and
again in the vain search for satisfaction. "Eight Millions of
bodies have we had, before we reached the human", say the Hindus.
Jnana says, "Kill desire and so get rid of it". That is the only
way. Cast out all causation and realise the Atman. Only freedom
can produce true morality. If there were only an endless chain of
cause and effect, Nirvâna could not be. It is extinction of the
seeming self, bound by this chain. That is what constitutes
freedom, to get beyond causality.

Our true nature is good, it is free, the pure being that can never
be or do wrong. When we read God with our eyes and minds, we call
Him this or that; but in reality there is but One, all variations
are our interpretations of that One. We become nothing; we regain
our true Self. Buddha's summary of misery as the outcome of
"ignorance and caste" (inequality) has been adopted by the
Vedantists, because it is the best ever made. It manifests the
wonderful insight of this greatest among men. Let us then be brave
and sincere: whatever path we follow with devotion, must take us
to freedom. Once lay hold of one link of the chain and the whole
must come after it by degrees. Water the root of the tree and the
whole tree is watered. It is of little advantage to waste time to
water each leaf. In other words, seek the Lord and getting Him we
get all. Churches, doctrines, forms - these are merely the hedges
to protect the tender plant of religion; but later on they must
all be broken down, that the little plant may become a tree. So
the various religious sects, Bibles, Vedas, and scriptures are
just "tubs" for the little plant; but it has to get out of the tub
and fill the world.

We must learn to feel ourselves as much in the sun, in the stars,
as here. Spirit is beyond all time and space; every eye seeing is
my eye; every mouth praising the Lord is my mouth; every sinner is
I. We are confined nowhere, we are not body. The universe is our
body. We are just the pure crystal reflecting all, but itself ever
the same. We are magicians waving magic wands and creating scenes
before us at will, but we have to go behind appearances and know
the Self. This world is like water in a kettle, beginning to boil;
first a bubble comes, then another, then many until all is in
ebullition and passes away in steam. The great teachers are like
the bubbles as they begin - here one, there one; but in the end
every creature has to be a bubble and escape. Creation, ever new,
will bring new water and go through the process all over again.
Buddha and Christ are the two greatest "bubbles" the world has
known. They were great souls who having realised freedom helped
others to escape. Neither was perfect, but they are to be judged
by their virtues, never by their defects. Jesus fell short,
because he did not always live up to his own highest ideal; and
above all, because he did not give woman an equal place with man.
Woman did everything for him, yet not one was made an apostle.
This was doubtless owing to his Semitic origin. The great Aryans,
Buddha among the rest, have always put woman in an equal position
with man. For them sex in religion did not exist. In the Vedas and
Upanishads, women taught the highest truths and received the same
veneration as men.

VIII

(These were originally recorded by a prominent American disciple
of the Swami, Miss S. E. Waldo. Swami Saradananda, while he was in
America (1896), copied them out from her notebook - Ed.)

Both happiness and misery are chains, the one golden, the other
iron; but both are equally strong to bind us and hold us back from
realising our true nature. The Atman knows neither happiness nor
misery. These are mere "states", and states must ever change. The
nature of the soul is bliss and peace unchanging. We have not to
get it; we have it; let us wash away the dross from our eyes and
see it. We must stand ever on the Self and look with perfect
calmness upon all the panorama of the world. It is but baby's play
and ought never to disturb us. If the mind is pleased by praise,
it will be pained by blame. All pleasures of the senses or even of
the mind are evanescent, but within ourselves is the one true
unrelated pleasure, dependent on nothing outside. "The pleasure of
the Self is what the world calls religion." The more our bliss is
within, the more spiritual we are. Let us not depend upon the
world for pleasure.

Some poor fishwives, overtaken by a violent storm, found refuge in
the garden of a rich man. He received them kindly, fed them, and
left them to rest in a summer-house, surrounded by exquisite
flowers which filled all the air with their rich perfume. The
women lay down in this sweet-smelling paradise, but could not
sleep. They missed something out of their lives and could not be
happy without it. At last one of the women arose and went to the
place where they had left their fish baskets, brought them to the
summer-house, and then once more happy in the familiar smell, they
were all soon sound asleep.

Let not the world be our "fish basket" which we have to depend
upon for enjoyment. This is Tâmasika, or being bound by the lowest
of the three qualities (or Gunas). Next higher come the
egotistical who talk always about "I", "I". Sometimes they do good
work and may become spiritual. These are Râjasika or active.
Highest come the introspective nature (Sâttvika), those who live
only in the Self. These three qualities are in every human being
in varying proportions, and different ones predominate at
different times. We must strive to overcome Tamas with Rajas and
then to submerge both in Sattva.

Creation is not a "making" of something, it is the struggle to
regain equilibrium, as when atoms of cork are thrown to the bottom
of a pail of water: they rush to the top singly and in clusters,
and when all have reached the top and equilibrium has been
regained, all motion or "life" ceases. So with creation; if
equilibrium were reached, all change would cease and life,
so-called, would end. Life must be accompanied with evil, for when
the balance is regained, the world must end, as sameness and
destruction are one. There is no possibility of ever having
pleasure without pain, or good without evil, for living itself is
just the lost equilibrium. What we want is freedom, not life, nor
pleasure, nor good. Creation is eternal, without beginning,
without end, the ever moving ripple in an infinite lake. There are
yet unreached depths and others where stillness has been regained,
but the ripple is ever progressing, the struggle to regain the
balance is eternal. Life and death are but different names for the
same fact, they are the two sides of one coin. Both are Mâyâ, the
inexplicable state of striving at one point to live and a moment
later to die. Beyond all this is the true nature, the Atman. We
enter into creation, and then, for us, it becomes living. Things
are dead in themselves, only we give them life, and then, like
fools, we turn round and are afraid of them or enjoy them! The
world is neither true nor untrue, it is the shadow of truth.

"Imagination is the gilded shadow of truth", says the poet. The
internal universe, the Real, is infinitely greater than the
external one, which is but the shadowy projection of the true one.
When we see the "rope", we do not see the "serpent", and when the
"serpent" is, the "rope" is not. Both cannot exist at the same
time; so while we see the world we do not realise the Self, it is
only an intellectual concept. In the realisation of Brahman, the
personal "I" and all sense of the world is lost. The Light does
not know the darkness, because it has no existence in the light;
so Brahman is all. While we recognise a God, it is really only the
Self that we have separated from ourselves and worship as outside
of us; but all the time it is our own true Self, the one and only
God. The nature of the brute is to remain where he is, of man to
seek good and avoid evil, of God to neither seek nor avoid, but
just to be blissful eternally. Let us be Gods, let us make our
hearts like an ocean, to go beyond all the trifles of the world
and see it only as a picture. We can then enjoy it without being
in any way affected by it. Why look for good in the world, what
can we find there? The best it has to offer is only as if children
playing in a mud puddle found a few glass beads. They lose them
again and have to begin the search anew. Infinite strength is
religion and God. We are only souls if we are free, there is
immortality only if we are free, there is God only if He is free.

Until we give up the world manufactured by the ego, never can we
enter the Kingdom of Heaven. None ever did, none ever will. To
give up the world is to utterly forget the ego, to know it not at
all, living in the body but not being ruled by it. This rascal ego
must be obliterated. Power to help mankind is with the silent ones
who only live and love and withdraw their own personality
entirely. They never say "me" or "mine", they are only blessed in
being the instruments to help others. They are wholly identified
with God, asking nothing and not consciously doing anything. They
are the true Jivanmuktas - the absolutely selfless, their little
personality thoroughly blown away, ambition non-existent. They are
all principle, with no personality. The more we sink the "little
self", the more God comes. Let us get rid of the little "I" and
let only the great "I" live in us. Our best work and our greatest
influence is when we are without a thought of self. It is the
"desireless" who bring great results to pass. Bless men when they
revile you. Think how much good they are doing by helping to stamp
out the false ego. Hold fast to the real Self, think only pure
thoughts, and you will accomplish more than a regiment of mere
preachers. Out of purity and silence comes the word of power.

IX

(These were originally recorded by a prominent American disciple
of the Swami, Miss S. E. Waldo. Swami Saradananda, while he was in
America (1896), copied them out from her notebook - Ed.)

Expression is necessarily degeneration, because spirit can only be
expressed by the "letter", and as St. Paul said, "the letter
killeth". Life cannot be in the "letter" which is only a
reflection. Yet, principle must be clothed in matter to be
"known". We lose sight of the Real in the covering and come to
consider that as the Real, instead of as the symbol. This is an
almost universal mistake. Every great Teacher knows this and tries
to guard against it; but humanity, in general, is prone to worship
the seen rather than the unseen. This is why a succession of
prophets have come to the world to point again and again to the
principle behind the personality and to give it a new covering
suited to the times. Truth remains ever unchanged, but it can only
be presented in a "form"; so from time to time a new "form" or
expression is given to Truth, as the progress of mankind makes
them ready to receive it. When we free ourselves from name and
form, especially when we no longer need a body of any kind, good
or bad, coarse or fine, then only do we escape from bondage.
"Eternal progression" would be eternal bondage. We must get beyond
all differentiation and reach eternal "sameness" or homogeneity or
Brahman. The Atman is the unity of all personalities and is
unchangeable, the "One without a second". It is not life, but it
is coined into life. It is beyond life and death and good and bad.
It is the Absolute Unity. Dare to seek Truth even through hell.
Freedom can never be true of name and form, of the related. No
form can say, "I am free as a form." Not until all idea of form is
lost, does freedom come. If our freedom hurts others, we are not
free there. We must not hurt others. While real perception is only
one, relative perceptions must be many. The fountain of all
knowledge is in every one of us - in the ant as in the highest
angel. Real religion is one; all quarrel is with the forms, the
symbols, the "illustrations". The millennium exists already for
those who find it. The truth is, we have lost ourselves and think
the world to be lost. "Fool! Hearest not thou? In thine own heart,
day and night, is singing that Eternal Music - Sachchidânanda,
Soham, Soham, (Existence, Knowledge, and Bliss, I am He, I am
He)!"

To try to think without a phantasm is to try to make the
impossible possible. Each thought has two parts - the thinking and
the word, and we must have both. Neither idealists nor
materialists are able to explain the world; to do that, we must
take both idea and expression. All knowledge is of the reflected
as we can only see our own faces reflected in a mirror. So no one
can know his Self or Brahman; but each is that Self and must see
it reflected in order to make it an object of knowledge. This
seeing the illustrations of the unseen Principle is what leads to
idolatry - so-called. The range of idols is wider than is usually
supposed. They range from wood and stone to great personalities as
Jesus or Buddha. The introduction of idols into India was the
result of Buddha's constantly inveighing against a Personal God.
The Vedas knew them not, but the reaction against the loss of God
as Creator and Friend led to making idols of the great teachers,
and Buddha himself became an idol and is worshipped as such by
millions of people. Violent attempts at reform always end in
retarding true reform. To worship is inherent in every man's
nature; only the highest philosophy can rise to pure abstraction.
So man will ever personify his God in order to worship Him. This
is very good, as long as the symbol, be it what it may, is
worshipped as a symbol of the Divinity behind and not in and for
itself. Above all, we need to free ourselves from the superstition
of believing because "it is in the books". To try to make
everything - science, religion, philosophy, and all - conform to
what any book says, is a most horrible tyranny. Book-worship is
the worst form of idolatry. There was once a stag, proud and free,
and he talked in a lordly fashion to his child, "Look at me, see
my powerful horns! With one thrust I can kill a man; it is a fine
thing to be a stag!" Just then the sound of the huntsman's bugle
was heard in the distance, and the stag precipitately fled,
followed by his wondering child. When they had reached a place of
safety, he inquired, "Why do you fly before man, O my father, when
you are so strong and brave?" The stag answered, "My child, I know
I am strong and powerful, but when I hear that sound, something
seizes me and makes me fly whether I will or no." So with us. We
hear the "bugle sound" of the laws laid down in the books, habits
and old superstitions lay hold of us; and before we know it, we
are fast bound and forget our real nature which is freedom.

Knowledge exists eternally. The man who discovers a spiritual
truth is what we call "inspired", and what he brings to the world
is revelation. But revelation too is eternal and is not to be
crystallised as final and then blindly followed. Revelation may
come to any man who has fitted himself to receive it. Perfect
purity is the most essential thing, for only "the pure in heart
shall see God". Man is the highest being that exists and this is
the greatest world, for here can man realise freedom. The highest
concept we can have of God is man. Every attribute we give Him
belongs also to man, only in a lesser degree. When we rise higher
and want to get out of this concept of God, we have to get out of
the body, out of mind and imagination, and leave this world out of
sight. When we rise to be the absolute, we are no longer in the
world - all is Subject, without object. Man is the apex of the
only "world" we can ever know. Those who have attained "sameness"
or perfection, are said to be "living in God". All hatred is
"killing the self by the self"; therefore, love is the law of
life. To rise to this is to be perfect; but the more "perfect" we
are, the less work can we do. The Sattvika see and know that all
this world is mere child's play and do not trouble themselves
about that. We are not much disturbed when we see two puppies
fighting and biting each other. We know it is not a serious
matter. The perfect one knows that this world is Mâyâ. Life is
called Samsâra - it is the result of the conflicting forces acting
upon us. Materialism says, "The voice of freedom is a delusion."
Idealism says, "The voice that tells of bondage is but a dream."
Vedanta says, "We are free and not free at the same time." That
means that we are never free on the earthly plane, but ever free
on the spiritual side. The Self is beyond both freedom and
bondage. We are Brahman, we are immortal knowledge beyond the
senses, we are Bliss Absolute.

SIX LESSONS ON RAJA-YOGA

(These lessons are composed of notes of class talks given by Swami
Vivekananda to an intimate audience in the house of Mrs. Sara C.
Bull, a devoted American disciple, and were preserved by her and
finally printed in 1913 for private circulation - Ed.)

Râja-Yoga is as much a science as any in the world. It is an
analysis of the mind, a gathering of the facts of the super
sensuous world and so building up the spiritual world. All the
great spiritual teachers the world has known said, "I see and I
know." Jesus, Paul, and Peter all claimed actual perception of the
spiritual truths they taught.

This perception is obtained by Yoga.

Neither memory nor consciousness can be the limitation of
existence. There is a super conscious state. Both it and the
unconscious state are sensationless, but with a vast difference
between them - the difference between ignorance and knowledge.
Present Yoga as an appeal to reason, as a science.

Concentration of the mind is the source of all knowledge.

Yoga teaches us to make matter our slave, as it ought to be. Yoga
means "yoke", "to join", that is, to join the soul of man with the
supreme Soul or God.

The mind acts in and under consciousness. What we call
consciousness is only one link in the infinite chain that is our
nature.

This "I" of ours covers just a little consciousness and a vast
amount of unconsciousness, while over it, and mostly unknown to
it, is the super conscious plane.

Through faithful practice, layer after layer of the mind opens
before us, and each reveals new facts to us. We see as it were new
worlds created before us, new powers are put into our hands, but
we must not stop by the way or allow ourselves to be dazzled by
these "beads of glass" when the mine of diamonds lies before us.

God alone is our goal. Failing to reach God, we die.

Three things are necessary to the student who wishes to succeed.

First. Give up all ideas of enjoyment in this world and the next,
care only for God and Truth. We are here to know truth, not for
enjoyment. Leave that to brutes who enjoy as we never can. Man is
a thinking being and must struggle on until he conquers death,
until he sees the light. He must not spend himself in vain talking
that bears no fruit. Worship of society and popular opinion is
idolatry. The soul has no sex, no country, no place, no time.

Second. Intense desire to know Truth and God. Be eager for them,
long for them, as a drowning man longs for breath. Want only God,
take nothing else, let not "seeming" cheat you any longer. Turn
from all and seek only God.

Third. The six trainings: First - Restraining the mind from going
outward. Second - Restraining the senses. Third - Turning the mind
inward. Fourth - Suffering everything without murmuring. Fifth -
Fastening the mind to one idea. Take the subject before you and
think it out; never leave it. Do not count time. Sixth - Think
constantly of your real nature. Get rid of superstition. Do not
hypnotise yourself into a belief in your own inferiority. Day and
night tell yourself what you really are, until you realise
(actually realise) your oneness with God.

Without these disciplines, no results can be gained.

We can be conscious of the Absolute, but we can never express It.
The moment we try to express It, we limit It and It ceases to be
Absolute.

We have to go beyond sense limit and transcend even reason, and we
have the power to do this.
[After practising the first lesson in breathing a week, the pupil
reports to the teacher.]

FIRST LESSON

This is a lesson seeking to bring out the individuality. Each
individuality must be cultivated. All will meet at the centre.
"Imagination is the door to inspiration and the basis of all
thought." All prophets, poets, and discoverers have had great
imaginative power. The explanation of nature is in us; the stone
falls outside, but gravitation is in us, not outside. Those who
stuff themselves, those who starve themselves, those who sleep too
much, those who sleep too little, cannot become Yogis. Ignorance,
fickleness, jealousy, laziness, and excessive attachment are the
great enemies to success in Yoga practice. The three great
requisites are:
First. Purity, physical and mental; all uncleanness, all that
would draw the mind down, must be abandoned.

Second. Patience: At first there will be wonderful manifestations,
but they will all cease. This is the hardest period, but hold
fast; in the end the gain is sure if you have patience.

Third. Perseverance: Persevere through thick and thin, through
health and sickness, never miss a day in practice.

The best time for practice is the junction of day and night, the
calmest time in the tides of our bodies, the zero point between
two states. If this cannot be done, practice upon rising and going
to bed. Great personal cleanliness is necessary - a daily bath.

After bathing, sit down and hold the seat firm, that is, imagine
that you sit as firm as a rock, that nothing can move you. Hold
the head and shoulders and the hips in a straight line, keeping
the spinal column free; all action is along it, and it must not be
impaired.

Begin with your toes and think of each part of your body as
perfect; picture it so in your mind, touching each part if you
prefer to do so. Pass upward bit by bit until you reach the head,
thinking of each as perfect, lacking nothing. Then think of the
whole as perfect, an instrument given to you by God to enable you
to attain Truth, the vessel in which you are to cross the ocean
and reach the shores of eternal truth. When this has been done,
take a long breath through both nostrils, throw it out again, and
then hold it out as long as you comfortably can. Take four such
breaths, then breathe naturally and pray for illumination.

"I meditate on the glory of that being who created this universe;
may he illuminate my mind." Sit and meditate on this ten or
fifteen minutes.

Tell your experiences to no one but your Guru.

Talk as little as possible.

Keep your thoughts on virtue; what we think we tend to become.

Holy meditation helps to burn out all mental impurities. All who
are not Yogis are slaves; bond after bond must be broken to make
us free.

All can find the reality beyond. If God is true, we must feel him
as a fact, and if there is a soul, we ought to be able to see it
and feel it.

The only way to find if there be a soul is to be something which
is not the body.

The Yogis class our organs under two chief heads: organs of sense
and organs of motion, or knowledge and action.

The internal organ or mind has four aspects. First - Manas, the
cogitating or thinking faculty, which is usually almost entirely
wasted, because uncontrolled; properly governed, it is a wonderful
power. Second - Buddhi, the will (sometimes called the intellect).
Third - Ahamkâra, the self-conscious egotism (from Aham). Fourth -
Chitta, the substance in and through which all the faculties act,
the floor of the mind as it were; or the sea in which the various
faculties are waves.

Yoga is the science by which we stop Chitta from assuming, or
becoming transformed into, several faculties. As the reflection of
the moon on the sea is broken or blurred by the waves, so is the
reflection of the Atman, the true Self, broken by the mental
waves. Only when the sea is stilled to mirror-like calmness, can
the reflection of the moon be seen, and only when the
"mind-stuff", the Chitta is controlled to absolute calmness, is
the Self to be recognised.

The mind is not the body, though it is matter in a finer form. It
is not eternally bound by the body. This is proved as we get
occasionally loosened from it. We can learn to do this at will by
controlling the senses.

When we can do that fully, we shall control the universe, because
our world is only what the senses bring us. Freedom is the test of
the higher being. Spiritual life begins when you have loosened
yourself from the control of the senses. He whose senses rule him
is worldly - is a slave.

If we could entirely stop our mind-stuff from breaking into waves,
it would put an end to our bodies. For millions of years we have
worked so hard to manufacture these bodies that in the struggle we
have forgotten our real purpose in getting them, which was to
become perfect. We have grown to think that body-making is the end
of our efforts. This is Mâyâ. We must break this delusion and
return to our original aim and realise we are not the body, it is
our servant.

Learn to take the mind out and to see that it is separate from the
body. We endow the body with sensation and life and then think it
is alive and real. We have worn it so long that we forget that it
is not identical with us. Yoga is to help us put off our body when
we please and see it as our servant, our instrument, not our
ruler. Controlling the mental powers is the first great aim in
Yoga practices. The second is concentrating them in full force
upon any subject.

"It is imperative that all these various Yogas should be carried out in, practice; mere theories about them will not do any good. First we have to hear about them, then we have to think about them. We have to reason the thoughts out, impress them on our minds, and we have to meditate on them, realise them, until at last they become our whole life. No longer will religion remain a bundle of ideas or theories, nor an intellectual assent; it will enter into our very self. By means of intellectual assent we may today subscribe to many foolish things, and change our minds altogether tomorrow. But true religion never changes.
Religion is realisation; not talk, nor doctrine, nor theories, however beautiful they may be. It is being and becoming, not hearing or acknowledging; it is the whole soul becoming changed into what it believes. That is religion."Swami VivekanandaComplete Works of Swami Vivekananda - Vol-2